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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28978677">Not an Obsession</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamedAfterTheDog/pseuds/NamedAfterTheDog'>NamedAfterTheDog</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:34:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,383</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28978677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamedAfterTheDog/pseuds/NamedAfterTheDog</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia Organa is definitely not obsessed.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Leia Organa/Han Solo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Not an Obsession</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <em>He is too old for me.</em>
</p><p>Leia Organa put that statement across the top of the virtual file she had created once she realised she had been compiling a list about Han Solo.</p><p>It wasn’t an obsession.</p><p>The list had an innocuous start; an idle thought crossing her mind at the ceremony following the destruction of the Death Star. Wearing a shirt with the collar closed, boots polished, trousers laundered and red Bloodstripes aligned, from a distance Solo appeared <em>presentable</em>. She anticipated Luke Skywalker would look fresh-faced and handsome once he had changed out of the clothes of a moisture farmer, but the smuggler had also put in some effort. Leia was pleasantly surprised.</p><p>
  <em>He cleans up well enough.</em>
</p><p>Their march towards the end of the cavernous arena highlighted the difference between the two men: the Tatooinian shorter, younger and determined not to be awed by the ritual of the event; the confident bearing of the Corellian suggesting he had military experience. As they approached the dais she stood upon, Leia became aware of Solo’s gaze: sharp, unrelenting, and focused on her. She resolutely kept her eyes on Luke.</p><p>To lighten the moment, Leia beamed at Luke’s infectious smile, but chose not to react to the smirk Solo gave her, or his irreverent wink after she draped the medal around his neck. She was too busy ignoring the angle of his jawline, the strong lines of his neck, the way his thick hair shone, enticing her to push her fingers through it.</p><p>She didn’t, of course.</p><p>Her list wasn’t an expression of an obsession. It was simple observations she made about Han Solo that were designed to help her work out who he was, because—unsurprisingly—he was proving difficult to nail down. One minute he was arrogant and oafish, a mercenary only in it for the money; the next he was vaguely heroic, a touch unselfish, almost friendly and caring. He confused her no end.</p><p>Leia needed to define <em>who</em> Solo was; that was the way she operated. She was an expert at collating information, processing it, analysing, hypothesising, developing logical conclusions—all to bring order to chaos, and from her experience, it was evident that chaos followed in Solo’s bootsteps like a whimpering pup.</p><p>By categorising and classifying the Corellian, as if he was a newly discovered non-sentient species, Leia would then decide whether to count him as friend, acquaintance or hired contractor, that was assuming he stayed with the rebels. An objective analysis would also allow her to appreciate his physical attributes without it developing into anything more than that.</p><p>For the time being, Leia summed Solo up in one short, encapsulating phrase: <em>Good-looking; not overly bright; too old for me.</em></p><p>After the ceremony, there were many issues requiring Leia’s attention: the evacuation from Yavin IV; finding a way to actively contribute to the Alliance to Restore the Republic that was more than ceremonial; proving to High Command, particularly Supreme Commander Mon Mothma, that she was capable of serving in the military forces, that she didn’t need to go into hiding; and ultimately burying her loss and grief in one sole objective—destroying the Empire.</p><p><em>That</em> was her fixation, not some two-credit mercenary who would, when the going got tough, disappear back into whatever crack he had crawled out from. Solo would do that because his values and ethics were as questionable as his intelligence, even if he had returned—in his own sweet time—to help Luke destroy the Death Star. He was a smuggler who chose to operate with other felons.</p><p>Naturally, Leia did not consider herself a criminal, despite the Empire proscribing the Alliance as a terrorist organisation. The rebels were fighting against an authoritarian government that committed atrocities, whereas Solo chose to operate outside the common laws of morality and decency. And as far as Leia was concerned, he was a distraction—nothing more, nothing less. A good-looking criminal distraction. But not an obsession.</p><p>With the Empire intent on hunting them down, the rebel forces dispersed throughout the galaxy. Leia arranged to stay with the cell that Luke was assigned to in his new role as commander of the newly formed Rogue Squadron. Solo attached himself to the cell on an unofficial basis, smuggling arms and other supplies for the rebels for what she suspected was a pittance of what he could make as smuggler. It—he—made no sense.</p><p>
  <em>Good-looking; not overly bright; too old for me.</em>
</p><p>Leia was a born organiser, and although not formally commissioned into the armed forces, she volunteered to become the cell’s procurement officer. Coincidentally, this meant dealing with Solo as one of the few reliable contractors they had. She assigned him contracts, certified his expenses, ensured he was compensated, either in parts for his ship or hard credits that he could run his greedy fingers through.</p><p>When he was on base, she saw him every day: working on his ship in the hangar, attending briefings, or bothering her with suggestions for potential suppliers,. His suggestions were delivered in his usual smug tone, but his ideas were unorthodox, risky and usually paid off. Leia placed a question mark next to his intelligence.</p><p>Looking up at him as he leaned against her desk, arms folded across his broad chest, backside propped on the edge, long legs posed at an insouciant slant, Leia had the ideal view of the shape of his neck: the distinct tendons, the jut of his larynx that was responsible for the depth of his voice.</p><p>She found it amusing to think that Alderaan’s ancients had believed the bulge on a man’s neck was a remnant from when a forbear had stolen and eaten a forbidden fruit. Since then, the ‘stolen apple’ was lodged in the throats of descendants, forever commemorating the ancestral crime. It seemed rather fitting that Solo, her distracting criminal with the prominent larynx, had been distinctly marked because she knew, without doubt, that he had at one stage stolen ‘forbidden fruit’.</p><p>If Leia stopped long enough for a meal in the all-ranks mess, Solo was invariably there, usually with his wonderful Wookiee co-pilot, Chewbacca, and sometimes with Luke if he wasn’t on patrol or training. She took advantage of these serendipitous occasions to continue her observations, collecting information about her good-looking distraction, but not obsessing about him.</p><p>Within a few weeks, she was thinking of him as ‘Han’ instead of ‘Solo’.</p><p>‘Solo’ was what members of the Alliance called him, as well as ‘arrogant prick’ or ‘crazy bastard’, depending on who he interacted with. It was only Luke who called the Corellian ‘Han’. Leia wasn’t sure if she liked the name because Luke used it, or because of the way it sounded when spoken. She grudgingly admittedly that she had become fond of saying his name.</p><p>
  <em>Han.</em>
</p><p>The name was short, subtle. Neither attributes accurately reflected its owner, yet somehow it suited him.</p><p>From her linguistic studies, Leia knew that ‘H’ was an unvoiced sound; the vocal cords did not vibrate when the sound was made. The soft consonant rolled across her tongue when she said it, like a puff or exhalation of air. There was a softness to it, an intimacy that was not familiar to her but enjoyable, nonetheless.</p><p>
  <em>Han…</em>
</p><p>Like a gasp against warm skin.</p><p>
  <em>Han…</em>
</p><p>A sigh into an open mouth.</p><p>That didn’t mean his intelligence still wasn’t open to question.</p><p>
  <em>Good-looking; not overly bright (?); too old for me.</em>
</p><p>Han, Leia decided, was not classically handsome. As she found his face intriguing, she went back to basics, to the part of him that had started her study.</p><p>
  <em>That jawline is something else.</em>
</p><p>The distinctive sharp angle gave shape to his face and led her gaze to a square chin, marred by a crease on the right side, a raised mark on the left, and a slash of scar across the middle—so wrong but perfectly Han; she couldn’t picture him any other way.</p><p><em>Not overly bright, </em>she reminded herself. <em>Possibly.</em></p><p>Her mother would have referred to his healed wound as a <em>cicatrix</em>, but Leia doubted the smuggler was even aware of the word’s existence.</p><p>
  <em>When he’s not scowling, his eyes are nice, even if the right eye is larger than the left.</em>
</p><p>She thought they were a honeyed version of her own brown eyes. Then sometimes they looked milky green, or greenish-brownish blue. That sent her to consult the classified biographical information that had been raised on him by Alliance Intelligence, where she discovered his height (1.85 metres) and his eye colour: hazel.</p><p>Leia wasn’t sure she had known anyone with hazel eyes; if she had, she hadn’t realised it. Naturally curious, she sought more data and found what she was looking for on a brainless gossip site catering for the upper echelon of the Empire’s elite corporate donors. She saved an extract from the article on her datapad, just in case she needed to retrieve the information again for purposes that would be totally unrelated to Han.</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>The Complex and Magnificent Art of Hazel Eyes</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>Hazel eyes are a dynamic work of art, as they are made up of green, gold and brown colours, sometimes with flecks of blue. This puts them apart from most other eye colours, which are a solid colour.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hazel eyes often appear to shift from brown/gold to a green, and are </em>
  <em>influenced by lighting, clothing colour and surroundings.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Across the galaxy, it is estimated that only 5% of the human population have hazel eyes.</em>
</p><p>That explained why his eyes appeared to colour-shift. They were as changeable and moody as he was.</p><p>On his temple next to his right eye were two tiny round peaks—skin imperfections—that invariably drew her attention back to his eyes. If he caught her looking at him, he brazenly return her gaze, his eyes dancing and smouldering with concealed secrets and promises she had no intention of finding out about. Ever.</p><p>His ears, though partially hidden under his scruffy hair, were large, one set higher than the other. Leia suspected his ears had been ridiculously prominent when he’d been a teenager—however long ago that was—and it had probably taken him a few years to grow into them.</p><p>
  <em>Good-looking; not overly bright (?); too old for me.</em>
</p><p>Long and slightly bent, his nose looked as if it had been broken at least once and hadn’t received professional medical attention, like the old wound on his chin.</p><p>The distinctive folds of skin that ran down from his nose gave shape to his cheeks, and had no right looking as good as they did, given they served no useful purpose.</p><p><em>Expressive</em> was the description she gave to his mouth, particularly the lopsided tilt when he smiled, or the goofy grin he sometimes aimed her way, pressing his lips together as he lifted them, eyebrows mirroring the curve of his mouth. She unsuccessfully tried not to smile back whenever he did that.</p><p>
  <em>And that full bottom lip…</em>
</p><p>A diversion. A distraction. Not an obsession.</p><p>It wasn’t as though Han filled her every waking thought, or even her dreams. Leia was focused on and dedicated to the Alliance. Han Solo didn’t have the slightest influence on how she performed her duties and responsibilities. He had no impact on her. This was not an obsession, only a pleasant distraction when she decided it was worth her while to continue cataloguing him.</p><p>If she had a spare moment and Han was nearby, Leia’s mind might wander to appreciate how he filled out his clothes in that particular masculine way he had about him. The set of his shoulders. The curve of his rear. Narrow waist and hips, flat stomach, firm thighs. The gun-rig made the long, lean lines of his body look off-centre, as asymmetrical as his face, his eyes, ears, smile, experiences, values...</p><p>
  <em>Good-looking; not overly bright (?); too old for me.</em>
</p><p>Reluctantly, Leia began to appreciate Han’s streetwise skills and piloting ability. She decided he was clever, in his own unique way, but it didn’t mean she considered him more than a distraction.</p><p>Leia couldn’t be attracted to someone if they didn’t intellectually stimulate her. That had been her experience with the romantic relationship she’d had—the <em>only</em> romantic relationship she had—when she was 16 years old. Granted, she had adored Kier Domadi’s physical looks, his dark hair, dark eyes and unblemished golden skin, but she had been more attracted to his intellect and personality. Kier had been keenly intelligent, stable, educated, articulate, literate—everything Han was not.</p><p><em>He’s definitely the anti-Kier.</em> Not that she was considering Han in terms of a potential romantic relationship.</p><p>Kier had been a staunch adherent to pacifism, and his love for and dedication towards Alderaan had been as deep as her own. They had been an ideal match in nearly every way. Her mother had told her as much, while also lamenting that Kier had been <em>too</em> suitable for Leia: <em>“Sometimes it does a girl good to fall for a bit of a scoundrel every now and then.”</em></p><p><em>Scoundrel.</em> The word suited Han more than <em>criminal</em>. But there was no possible way her mother would have approved of Han as a suitor for her daughter. Not that he was, or ever would be.</p><p>
  <em>Good-looking; <strike>not overly bright</strike>; too old for me; scoundrel.</em>
</p><p>Sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep and memories pushed through the barriers she had erected around her heart, Leia wondered if her relationship with Kier would have evolved to the point of marriage, if he hadn’t died. Would she, could she have committed herself to her first love—a boy—without knowing what it was like to involved with someone else—such as a man who wasn’t particularly intelligent, stable, educated, articulate or literate?</p><p>Leia became aware of the extent of Han’s literacy when a mug appeared on her workstation; a scratched and dented insulated mug with a slotted lid that looked like one she used on the <em>Falcon</em> when she accompanied Han on the odd supply run, except this one had black hand-written text curving around the entire surface area:</p><p>PROPERTY OF LEIA ORGANA</p><p>DO NOT TOUCH</p><p>YOU GET ONE WARNING</p><p>The blocked Aurabesh letters were distinct and familiar to her, the same manner that Han wrote his name.</p><p>It was a gift. A gift from her good-looking scoundrel distraction who was too old for her.</p><p>Leia recalled a recent meal she’d had in the mess, and her complaint to Luke (who was always willing to lend her an ear) about the poor quality of the disposable containers used to serve tea and caf, the frustration of confusing her mug with other people’s, and when she wasn’t mislaying her mug someone else was appropriating hers for themselves.</p><p>
  <em>“You mean stealin’, doncha?” Han interrupted from across the table, talking while chewing with his mouth open and pointing his fork at her.</em>
</p><p>Questionable table manners.</p><p>
  <em>Leia shook head. “No, I do not mean ‘stealing’.” She raised the disposable cup she had been drinking from to make her point. “These all look the same. I’m sure it’s accidental. No one is taking mine on purpose.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Course not.” Han’s eyes crinkled as he did that lopsided thing with his mouth and poked the fork through unappetising gruel in his bowl.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It’s not surprising you think that way,” she replied, determined to put him in his place and wipe the annoying, smug smirk from his face. “But I can assure you that members of the Alliance are not thieves like—” She stopped when she realised how she was going to end that sentence.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Han knew where she had been headed. The hazel of his eyes had hardened into points of grey. “Thieves like me?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Unable to return his gaze, Leia awkwardly looked towards Luke, but he was no help, shaking his head at her in gentle rebuke.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Han pushed his chair back, the screech of the leg ends as they scraped against the floor drawing the interest of those seated nearby.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t worry, Your Highnessess,” he growled. “I’ll get back in my place.” He strode out of the mess without looking back.</em>
</p><p>Leia had been unsure how to apologise to Han, or even if she should. She hadn’t actually accused him of being a thief, and she wasn’t prepared to admit that he had read her so easily. She also refused to acknowledge the flutter in her stomach as she turned the mug in her hand, stroking her thumb across letters written in indelible ink.</p><p>
  <em>A questionable gift from the good-looking scoundrel distraction with questionable table manners.</em>
</p><p>As he hadn’t bothered to personally give her the mug—just left it there for her to find without explanation or other niceties—and it <em>was</em> beaten-up, second-hand and now marked with his scrawl, she wasn’t inclined to thank him for it. He didn’t say anything either, but she knew he saw her cradling the mug as she moved around the base, from workstation to briefing theatre, hangar to mess hall. She took the mug with her onto the <em>Falcon</em> when they wordlessly called an end to hostilities and she flew with him again.</p><p>When the Alliance commissioned her into its forces, Leia returned to her desk after a meeting with General Rieekan to find text added to the mug—an insertion mark placed between OF and LEIA and the rank of CAPTAIN scrappily written above. She never worried about losing her drink again.</p><p>Han became her problem-solver. If there was something the Alliance required, he found it: bonding tape, diagnostic link-ups, hydrospanners, macrofusers, ground support equipment, fresh food, ration packs, pharmaceuticals. Whatever she needed, Han found a supplier. And instead of complex financial transfer arrangements involving third and fourth parties, a range of currencies, and advanced fiscal encryption levels, Leia entrusted Han with Alliance credits to directly pay for the goods at the point of transaction. She had initially done so as a test of his honesty, and been pleasantly surprised when he had not only paid for the goods, but returned the small balance that had been left over.</p><p>His hauls began including items that found their way onto her desk: a packet of kanali wafers, a piece of muja fruit; sweet loovar candies; and a caddy of Gatalentan tea after she mentioned the tea served in the mess was bitter.</p><p>The first and only time Leia thanked him for a gift, Han appeared uninterested. He kept his head buried under the cockpit console, focused on repairing whatever new fault had arisen on his ship. Then she realised she had misread his diffidence as indifference. Han had been unsure how she would respond to receiving an item meant solely for her and no one else on base, but his natural wariness had activated his defensive shields. He’d simply been uncomfortable dealing with her gratitude.</p><p>The day Leia was promoted to major and her duties expanded, the CAPTAIN rank on her mug received a line through it and the abbreviation MAJ was added in Han’s distinctive handwriting.</p><p>If Han was off-base on a supply run, Leia’s internal chrono ran in the background, counting the hours down until his return. She found herself trying not to worry about his safety, which made no sense to her because they were part of a military resistance, so their lives were regularly threatened. She felt the same concern for Luke when he was on patrol or a mission, but that made sense because Luke was an incredibly good friend who she deeply cared about. Apart from being a scoundrel and distraction, Leia was at a complete loss as to what Han was to her. Her analysis of him did not help. A few months into her study and all she had was a list of his anatomical imperfections and a few definitive labels.</p><p>
  <em>Good-looking; too old for me; scoundrel.</em>
</p><p>Of course, none of this detracted Leia from her responsibilities, her duty, her objective of destroying the Empire. And when she allowed herself a quiet moment of rest or reflection, she reviewed the virtual file she had secreted away in her mind: his jaw and scarred chin; different-sized eyes; skewed nose; scruffy hair that need a cut—the imperfections that made up her good-looking scoundrel.</p><p>Han. The anti-Kier. The distraction she was not obsessing about.</p>
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